‘Of course I will hang out more with sid!’

Alia Bhatt, who turned 23 on Wednesday, is currently busy with the promotions of her next film Kapoor & Sons that releases this Friday. We catch up with the busy actress over lunch as she, rather unselfconsciously, attacks her plate.

In the film Alia shares the screen with Pakistani hearth-throb Fawad Khan and her own rumoured boyfriend Sidharth Malhotra. We ask her if she added to the growing population of women who have a crush on Fawad Khan and she laughs saying, “No!” She adds, “I don’t look at Fawad in that way. Of course he is very attractive and an amazing actor. But for me he is more like a buddy. I am genuinely fond of him but somehow I never had that kind of feeling for him. During the promotions, I feel I got to know him better. He is a superb actor and my performance has only gotten better because of him.”

The young actress has had her fair share of paparazzi interference. But she remains unfazed when we bring it up. “To a certain extent, they are doing their job. I am not going to stop my life because people are thinking a certain way. There’s no doubt about the fondness that I have for Sid. He is a very close friend of mine, so of course I will hang out with him. As long as they (paparazzi) are not entering my bathroom, I’m okay,” she says.

Recently, Kamal R. Khan had made some nasty and obscene comments about her on Twitter. And coming to her defence was Sidharth who gave a fitting reply to KRK, politely asking him to mind his own business. Talking about it, Alia says with a smile, “That was very sweet of Sid since it’s unlike him to say anything, that too on Twitter! But I think it was about time someone said something. I don’t give these little things any importance but there’s no harm in responding once in a while and Sid did that perfectly. He didn’t say too much and he didn’t say too little.”